In the Court of the Crimson King: An Observation by King Crimson is the debut studio album from the English rock band King Crimson, released on 10 October 1969 on Atlantic Records. The album is considered to be one of the first and most influential of the progressive rock genre, where the band largely departed from the blues influences that rock music was founded upon and combined elements of jazz, classical, and symphonic music.

37-second sample from King Crimson's "The Court of the Crimson King", demonstrating the sound of the first incarnation of the band, with its classically-influenced style and use of the Mellotron instrument

Initial sessions for the album were held in early 1969 with producer Tony Clarke, most famous for his work with The Moody Blues. After these sessions failed to work out, the group were given permission to produce the album themselves. The album was recorded on a 1" 8-track recorder at Wessex Sound Studios in London, engineered by Robin Thompson and assisted by Tony Page.[2] In order to achieve the characteristic lush, orchestral sounds on the album, Ian McDonald spent many hours overdubbing layers of Mellotron and various woodwind and reed instruments.

Some time after the album had been completed, however, it was discovered that the stereo master recorder used during the mixdown stage of the album had incorrectly aligned recording heads. This misalignment resulted in a loss of high frequencies and introduced some unwanted distortion. This is evident in certain parts of the album, particularly on "21st Century Schizoid Man". Consequently, while preparing the first American release for Atlantic Records, a special copy was made from the original 2-track stereo master in an attempt to correct some of these anomalies. (The analog tape copying process usually results in generation loss.) From 1969 to 2003, this second-generation "corrected" copy was the source used in the dubbing of the various sub-masters used for vinyl, cassette and CD releases over the years. The original, "first-generation" stereo masters, however, had been filed away soon after the original 1969 mixdown sessions. These tapes were considered lost until 2003.

Barry Godber (1946–1970), a computer programmer, painted the album cover. Godber died in February 1970 from a heart attack, shortly after the album's release. It was his only album cover and the original painting is now owned by Robert Fripp.[3][4] Fripp had said about Godber:

Peter brought this painting in and the band loved it. I recently recovered the original from [managing label E.G. Records's] offices because they kept it exposed to bright light, at the risk of ruining it, so I ended up removing it. The face on the outside is the Schizoid Man, and on the inside it's the Crimson King. If you cover the smiling face, the eyes reveal an incredible sadness. What can one add? It reflects the music.[5]

In the Court of the Crimson King initially received mixed reactions from critics. Robert Christgau called the album "ersatz shit".[9][12] The review from Rolling Stone was favorable, writing that "[t]hey have combined aspects of many musical forms to create a surreal work of force and originality".[11] The album has since attained a classic status, with Allmusic praising it "[a]s if somehow prophetic, King Crimson projected a darker and edgier brand of post-psychedelic rock" in its original review by Lindsay Planer and calling it "definitive" and "daring" in its current review.[8]

In his 1997 book Rocking the Classics, critic and musicologist Edward Macan notes that In the Court of the Crimson King "may be the most influential progressive rock album ever released".[13]The Who's Pete Townshend was quoted as calling the album "an uncanny masterpiece".[14] In the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came fourth in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums".[15] The album was named as one of Classic Rock magazine's "50 Albums That Built Prog Rock".[16] In 2014, readers of Rhythm voted it the eighth greatest drumming album in the history of progressive rock.[17] In 2015, Rolling Stone named In the Court of the Crimson King the second greatest progressive rock album of all time, behind Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.[18]

In the Court of the Crimson King was reissued several times in the 1980s and 1990s through Polydor and EG Records, with pressings made from copies of several generations from the stereo sub-master tape. This resulted in a sub-par audio quality and audible tape hiss. In 1999, Virgin Records released a 30th Anniversary 24-bit remastered edition of the album.

In 2003, the first generation stereo master tapes were rediscovered in a storage vault. A year later, the album was released on CD with the High Definition Compatible Digital encoding format, described as the "Original Master Edition", on Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile label with improved sound quality compared to previous editions. A 12-page booklet is included. In October 2009, Fripp collaborated with musician and producer Steven Wilson to remix the original 8-track master recordings in a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mix, released as the album's 40th Anniversary edition.[19][20] The album was sold as three different packages: a two-CD set with the old and new stereo versions, a CD and DVD set with the new stereo and surround sound mixes, and a six-disc (5 CD/1 DVD) box with all mixes and bonus audio and video tracks.

The original album featured the following credit: "Produced By King Crimson for E.G. Productions – 'David & John'." David Enthoven and John Gaydon were the founders of EG Records, both of whom left the company during the 1970s. CD reissues from the 1980s removed "David & John"; the credit was restored in 1999 at Fripp's insistence.